Email lists, and ‘snail mail’ lists before them, have been a key part of the successful marketing strategy for almost any business for years on end. The point of an email list is to gather the email addresses of as many people as possible at which point a mass email is sent out to each of the people on the list. The hope here is that as many people as possible read the email, digest the information, and hopefully connect with the company that sent the email out. But these so-called traditional email lists have a few problems in today’s day and age.
The Problems With Traditional Email Lists
While traditional mass emailing has proven to be successful over the years, it has slowly become less so as a marketing method for several reasons. First of all, people are now aware of email lists and mass emailing strategies and opt out of such things whenever possible. If they are included on a list, there is a good chance that they will disregard the email without looking at it, much the same way that many people disregard their junk mail. Furthermore, and most importantly, the abundance and effectiveness of the spam features that many email providers include in their programs weeds many of these ‘mass’ emails out.
Can Email Marketing Be Considered Spam?
But is email marketing really spam? The question has been asked often and there really is no easy answer. It is clear, however, that mass emails are a lot less spammy when they are only sent to people who have an interest in the company or the company’s products. And this is precisely where data driven email lists come into play.
What Are Data Driven Email Lists
Data driven email lists work some so-called marketing magic for online retailers. They can provide news, information, and word of special promotions to customers and hopefully attract new customers in the process. The big difference between them and traditional email marketing techniques is that data driven email lists only take into account the people that might actually be interested in the company. They compile data on customers, users, and the public and then target the people whom the data says their products or services best fit.
How Data Driven Email Lists Work
If you are looking to delve deeper into data driven emails for your online business, it is important to be in the right mindset, a marketing mindset, if you will. This marketing mindset needs to start with understanding the customer and what they would like to see from you. It is important to consider any and all customer data as data that can potentially be used for customized data driven email lists.
Once the right mindset has been established, where all customer data is viewed as important, it should be noted that data driven email lists are meant to be varied. Instead of sending a single mass email to everybody on the list, you are instead supposed to send out a handful of tailored emails each aimed at a different demographic based on customer profiles and preferences.
The Role of Deep Data Analysis
Deep data analysis is another important piece of the email marketing puzzle. It has made the data driven email game even more complex and more rewarding. Instead of solely using customer data, these new data driven email programs can take into account actual demographics, website behavior, search behavior, and, of course, purchase activity. This data allows you to make even more accurate predictions on the kind of content that customers and others would most like to see from you and your company in their emails.
If you are at all involved with online business, then it is essential that you have a solid online marketing strategy. Email lists, especially data driven email lists, should be a big part of this strategy. If they are not, then you might soon find that you and your business are left in the dust. With that, it is important to learn as much as you can about data driven email lists and see how they might specifically benefit your company’s wants, needs, and goals.
Chelsea Miller consults small business and upstarts on their website and marketing needs. Her articles appear on marketing blogs. Visit the Lenstore.co.uk site to see how they manage their website as a busiy online retailer.
